Recent Texas rains a blip; lakes not filling

Weather officials said Wednesday they considered reclassifying parts of North Texas into the least severe stage of drought but held off because recent rains haven’t boosted lakes levels.

Bone-dry soil suffering from the state’s worst single-year drought is sucking up the rainfall before it runs into reservoirs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and parts of northeast Texas, National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy said.

“The recharge rate of the reservoirs has been disturbingly low,” he said.

Lake levels are a part of what weather officials use to decide drought-stage categories around the country each week. Data is submitted Tuesday mornings and the U.S. Drought Monitor map is released Thursday.

Murphy says recent rains will help drought conditions in the short term, but the precipitation forecast for coming months remains bleak.

“Unfortunately, the wet blip is over and the dry pattern should be returning,” Murphy said. “At least we got a hefty dose of rainfall.”

Only one lake out of 29 in the north central part of the state monitored by the state is not down by double-digit percentages from a year ago. Overall lake levels are down 22 percent.

The current drought started last fall with the arrival of the La Nina weather condition that causes below-normal rainfall. La Nina is back and forecasters say the drought is expected to drag on at least through June.

This year scant rainfall and scorching temperatures dried up many riverbeds, prompting some wildlife biologists to rescue threatened fish that are found only in one Texas river in the world. Hundreds of wildfires have blackened some 6,000 square miles and destroyed more than 2,700 homes in the state since the fire season started nearly a year ago.

Ranchers and farmers have been hit hardest. The most recent estimate shows crop and livestock losses at $5.2 billion and that number was expected to rise.

Debbie Davis, who ranches northwest of San Antonio, said she and others nearby got as much as 3 inches of rain in the past week. That gives her reason for optimism, despite not having planted oats or rye as others have and will see growth from the rainfall.

“It’s not going to do us much good other than it could grow some clover,” she said. “Maybe we’ll have a decent spring.”

Statewide since January Texans have seen an average of about 12 inches of rain, just 46 percent of the normal of about 26 inches.

Other parts of the state have not been as fortunate. Murphy said that if there were drought categories beyond exceptional, known as D4, West Texas and points south of Interstate 10 would qualify.

“If there was a D5 or D6 (category) you all would be in it,” he said of those areas that haven’t seen much rain in the past year.

Statewide October snapped a seven-month streak of precipitation levels that were among each month’s 10 driest on record. Still the amount of rain that month was below the normal of 2.63 inches by .45 inches. November was moderately dry as rains fell in north central Texas and along the Red River. The month ended up being the 39th driest November, falling about .66 inches short of the average of 1.90 inches.

So far December has been wet across the entire North Texas region as well as in extreme East Texas.

“You’re going to need a lot more to get out of this,” Murphy said. “So far December has certainly lived up to that.”